Ben Gallagher
heart shaped rocks
Independent
3.5 out of 5 stars

With a Tom Waits-ian growl and a kaleidoscopic circus organ waltz Ben Gallagher opens heart shaped rocks, but just when the opening track “Hungry Ghost” starts to feel like an old-time throwback guitarist Brian Esau throws down a guitar solo that fuses the nostalgia with modern influences. The ability of Gallagher to bridge such a wide gap so effortlessly — a feat he accomplishes time after time on the record — might come from his adaptive, adventurous nature. Some of the songs on heart shaped rocks were written by him in Las Salinas de Nahualapa, Nicaragua at a yoga and art retreat where he did trade work as a gardener in late 2012 and early 2013. That influence, no doubt, results in the album sounding like it’s not just from another place, but another time as well.